Moralityhttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/morality
en-usTue, 31 Mar 2015 18:48:21 -0400Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:48:21 -0400The latest news on Morality from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/religion-doesnt-make-people-more-moral-2014-9Study Suggests That Religion Doesn’t Make People More Moralhttp://www.businessinsider.com/religion-doesnt-make-people-more-moral-2014-9
Mon, 15 Sep 2014 19:14:00 -0400Elizabeth Palermo
<p><img class="full" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54142246eab8eac24837413d-1200-600/pope-francis-33.jpg" border="0" alt="Pope Francis"></p><p>The moral high ground seems to be a crowded place. A new study suggests that religious people aren't more likely to do good than their nonreligious counterparts. And while they may vehemently disagree with one another at times, liberals and conservatives also tend to be on par when it comes to behaving morally.</p>
<p>Researchers asked 1,252 adults of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.livescience.com/20609-political-polarization-dangerous-psychology.html">different religious and political backgrounds</a>&nbsp;in the United States and Canada to record the good and bad deeds they committed, witnessed, learned about or were the target of throughout the day.</p>
<p>The goal of the study was to assess how morality plays out in everyday life for different people, said Dan Wisneski, a professor of psychology at Saint Peter's University in Jersey City, New Jersey, who helped conduct the study during his tenure at the University of Illinois at Chicago. [<a href="http://www.livescience.com/18421-religion-impacts-health.html">8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life</a>]</p>
<p>The study's findings may come as a shock to those who think religious or political affiliation helps dictate a person's&nbsp;<a href="http://www.livescience.com/22399-babies-moral-compass.html">understanding of right and wrong</a>.</p>
<p>Wisneski and his fellow researchers found that religious and nonreligious people commit similar numbers of moral acts. The same was found to be true for people on both ends of the political spectrum. And regardless of their political or religious leanings, participants were all found to be more likely to report committing, or being the target of, a moral act rather than an immoral act. They were also much more likely to report having heard about immoral acts rather than moral acts.</p>
<p>However, there were some differences in how people in different groups responded emotionally to so-called "moral phenomena," Wisneski said. For example, religious people reported experiencing more intense self-conscious emotions — such as guilt, embarrassment, and disgust — after committing an immoral act than did nonreligious people. Religious people also reported experiencing a greater sense of pride and gratefulness after committing moral deeds than their nonreligious counterparts.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.livescience.com/25491-liberals-conservatives-not-that-different.html">Liberals and conservatives</a>&nbsp;also tended to think of moral phenomena in different ways. In other words, though they seemed to experience the same amount of moral and immoral acts, they had different ways of talking about these experiences.</p>
<p>"Liberals more often mention moral phenomena related to fairness and honesty," Wisneski said. "Conservatives more often mention moral phenomena related to loyalty and disloyalty or sanctity and degradation."</p>
<p>For three days, participants received five text messages a day that included a link to the study's mobile website, where they could record any moral phenomena that they had experienced in the past hour via their smartphones. On average, participants reported one moral experience per day, Wisneski said.</p>
<p>This approach to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.livescience.com/24802-animals-have-morals-book.html">studying morality</a>&nbsp;is a far cry from previous studies, most of which have been conducted in a laboratory setting and have focused on studying peoples' responses to hypothetical moral dilemmas, according to Wisneski.</p>
<p>"As far as I know, this is the first study that's used this kind of lived-experience approach to track morality as it's happening," he said.</p>
<p>In the future, Wisneski and his colleagues hope to use their smartphone-enabled approach to study morality in a more nationally representative sample of people, he said. They also think this method could be applied to studying morality in different parts of the world, such as Asia and the Middle East, where religious and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.livescience.com/43272-russian-homosexuality-morality-poll.html">political beliefs may have different influences</a>&nbsp;than on people in North America.</p>
<p>The morality study, which was conducted by psychologists at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Cologne, in Germany, and the University of Tilburg, in the Netherlands, was published online today (Sept. 11) in the journal Science.</p>
<p><em>Follow Elizabeth Palermo @<a href="https://twitter.com/techEpalermo">techEpalermo</a>.&nbsp;Follow Live Science&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/LiveScience">@livescience</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/livescience">Facebook</a>&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;<a href="https://plus.google.com/101164570444913213957/posts">Google+</a>. Original article on&nbsp;<a href="http://www.livescience.com/47799-morality-religion-political-beliefs.html">Live Science</a>.</em></p>
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<li><em><a href="http://www.livescience.com/24800-animals-emotions-morality.html">5 Animals With a Moral Compass</a></em></li>
<li><em><a href="http://www.livescience.com/17852-unhealthy-personality-traits-neuroticism.html">7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You</a></em></li>
<li><em><a href="http://www.livescience.com/19536-saint-spiritual-slacker-test-religious-knowledge.html">Saint or Slacker? Test Your Religious Knowledge</a></em></li>
</ul>
<p><em>Copyright 2014&nbsp;<a href="http://www.livescience.com/">LiveScience</a>, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</em></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-afraid-of-female-promiscuity-2014-7" >Why People Are Afraid Of Female Promiscuity</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/religion-doesnt-make-people-more-moral-2014-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-reasons-people-do-bad-things-2014-827 Psychological Reasons Why Good People Do Bad Things http://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-reasons-people-do-bad-things-2014-8
Sun, 07 Sep 2014 15:00:00 -0400Emmie Martin
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/538cf603eab8eaee7f926f0e-480-/taylor-schilling-orange-is-the-new-black.jpg" border="0" alt="taylor schilling orange is the new black" width="480"></p><p></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It's an old story: The star executive who gets caught waist-deep in a fraud scandal; the finance phenom who steals millions by skimming off the top.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">What causes these smart, successful people to get wrapped up in illegal activities and unethical behavior? </span><a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">Dr. Muel Kaptein of the Rotterdam School of Management</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> tackled this question in a paper about why good people do bad things.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">These major crimes usually escalate from smaller offenses or lapses in judgment that are rationalized by a slew of psychological reasons.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>We've collected 27 insights from Kaptein that explain a few of the various reasons why good people lie, cheat, and steal.</p>
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">This is an update of a story originally reported by Max Nisen and Aimee Groth.&nbsp;</em></p><h3>Tunnel vision</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/53e518ef6da811645ee2af84-400-300/tunnel-vision.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Setting and achieving goals is important, but <strong>single-minded focus on them can blind people</strong> to ethical concerns.&nbsp;</p>
<p>When Enron offered large bonuses to employees for bringing in sales, they became so focused on that goal that they forgot to make sure they were profitable or moral. We all know how that ended.</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">Muel Kaptein</a>&nbsp;</em></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>The power of names</h3>
<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/53ee1a4969bedd3a20d3953f-400-300/the-power-of-names.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>When bribery becomes "greasing the wheels" or accounting fraud becomes "financial engineering," unethical behavior may be seen in a more positive light.</p>
<p>The <strong>use of nicknames and euphemisms for questionable practices</strong> can free them of their moral connotations, making them seem more acceptable.</p>
<p><em>Source:&nbsp;<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">Muel Kaptein</a></em></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>Social bond theory</h3>
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/53e51bb3eab8ea4c23c4ccd3-400-300/social-bond-theory.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>In large organizations, <strong>employees can begin to feel more like numbers or cogs in a machine</strong> than individuals.</p>
<p>When people feel detached from the goals and leadership of their workplace, they are more likely to commit fraud, steal, or hurt the company via neglect.</p>
<p><em>Source:&nbsp;<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">Muel Kaptein</a></em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-reasons-people-do-bad-things-2014-8#the-galatea-effect-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-reasons-people-do-bad-things-2014-827 Psychological Reasons Why Good People Do Bad Thingshttp://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-reasons-people-do-bad-things-2014-8
Wed, 03 Sep 2014 12:00:00 -0400Emmie Martin
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/538cf603eab8eaee7f926f0e-480-/taylor-schilling-orange-is-the-new-black.jpg" border="0" alt="taylor schilling orange is the new black" width="480"></p><p></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It's an old story: The star executive who gets caught waist-deep in a fraud scandal; the finance phenom who steals millions by skimming off the top.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">What causes these smart, successful people to get wrapped up in illegal activities and unethical behavior? </span><a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">Dr. Muel Kaptein of the Rotterdam School of Management</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> tackled this question in a paper about why good people do bad things.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">These major crimes usually escalate from smaller offenses or lapses in judgment that are rationalized by a slew of psychological reasons.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>We've collected 27 insights from Kaptein that explain a few of the various reasons why good people lie, cheat, and steal.</p>
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">This is an update of a story originally reported by Max Nisen and Aimee Groth.&nbsp;</em></p><h3>Tunnel vision</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/53e518ef6da811645ee2af84-400-300/tunnel-vision.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Setting and achieving goals is important, but <strong>single-minded focus on them can blind people</strong> to ethical concerns.&nbsp;</p>
<p>When Enron offered large bonuses to employees for bringing in sales, they became so focused on that goal that they forgot to make sure they were profitable or moral. We all know how that ended.</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">Muel Kaptein</a>&nbsp;</em></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>The power of names</h3>
<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/53ee1a4969bedd3a20d3953f-400-300/the-power-of-names.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>When bribery becomes "greasing the wheels" or accounting fraud becomes "financial engineering," unethical behavior may be seen in a more positive light.</p>
<p>The <strong>use of nicknames and euphemisms for questionable practices</strong> can free them of their moral connotations, making them seem more acceptable.</p>
<p><em>Source:&nbsp;<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">Muel Kaptein</a></em></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>Social bond theory</h3>
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/53e51bb3eab8ea4c23c4ccd3-400-300/social-bond-theory.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>In large organizations, <strong>employees can begin to feel more like numbers or cogs in a machine</strong> than individuals.</p>
<p>When people feel detached from the goals and leadership of their workplace, they are more likely to commit fraud, steal, or hurt the company via neglect.</p>
<p><em>Source:&nbsp;<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">Muel Kaptein</a></em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-reasons-people-do-bad-things-2014-8#the-galatea-effect-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-the-world-feels-about-8-moral-questions-2014-8These Charts Show How The World Feels About 8 Moral Issues http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-the-world-feels-about-8-moral-questions-2014-8
Sat, 23 Aug 2014 14:48:02 -0400Christina Sterbenz
<p>What people find morally acceptable and unacceptable depends on where they live in the world.</p>
<p>The charts below from the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/04/15/global-morality/">Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project</a>&nbsp;show people's views on eight topics, often considered moral issues: extramarital affairs, gambling, homosexuality, abortion, premarital sex, alcohol consumption, divorce, and contraceptives.</p>
<p>Pew surveyed 40,117 respondents in 40 different countries in 2013 to obtain the data.</p>
<p>The first graphic below gives the median response across the world. People were the most disapproving of <span>extramarital affairs, with 78% calling them morally "unacceptable," while</span>&nbsp;14% of respondents, the lowest in the survey, felt contraceptive use was "unacceptable."&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Topics like premarital sex and alcohol use were most the polarizing.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/53f3b0f1eab8ea3266c03ef1-650-364/screenshot 2014-08-19 16.17.33.png" border="0" alt="Pew morality" style="line-height: 1.5em;"></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The rest of the charts, ordered from least-accepted topic to the most, show a breakdown of how various countries responded. The colors correspond to specific regions: green represents Asia/the Pacific; mauve, Europe; light blue, Latin America; peach, the Middle East, bright blue, North America; brown, Sub-Saharan Africa.</span></p>
<p>As Pew noted:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Generally, African and predominantly Muslim countries tend to find most of these activities morally unacceptable, while in advanced economies, such as those in Western Europe, Japan, and North America, people tend to be more accepting or to not consider these moral issues at all."</p>
<h3>Extramarital affairs</h3>
<p>More than half of people in all but one country — France — consider having an affair immoral.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/53f3aec8eab8eaf753a7abbd-662-1004/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.53.49.png" border="0" alt="Pew extramarital affairs"></p>
<h3>Gambling</h3>
<p>In Africa and the Middle East, large majorities label gambling "unacceptable." In France, Canada, and the U.S., however, fewer than one quarter feel that way.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/53f3af64eab8eaaa66c03eed-658-1008/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.53.58.png" border="0" alt="Pew gambling"></p>
<h3>Homosexuality</h3>
<p>More than 90% of respondents in seven countries (Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Jordan, Palestinian territories, Tunisia, and Uganda) say homosexuality is unacceptable. Europeans, however, are much less likely to say the same.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/53f3af9c6bb3f78b1fc03eed-653-1004/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.14.png" border="0" alt="homosexuality Pew"></p>
<h3>Abortion</h3>
<p>Half or more of respondents in 26 of the 40 countries believe abortions are morally unacceptable. People in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and mostly Muslim countries in Asia and the Middle East lean more toward calling it immoral, whereas Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan feel the opposite or indifferent.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/53f3afcbeab8ea7766c03eed-656-1006/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.24.png" border="0" alt="Pew abortion"></p>
<h3>Premarital Sex</h3>
<p>Muslim countries largely believe that sex before marriage is unacceptable, while about 10% or fewer respondents in Germany, France, and Spain say the same.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/53f3b02d6bb3f70920c03eed-658-1008/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.30.png" border="0" alt="Pew premarital sex"></p>
<h3>Alcohol</h3>
<p>Opinions on alcohol use vary across the 40 countries, but predominantly respondents in Muslim countries find it problematic. Fewer than 10% of respondents feel drinking is morally unacceptable in Britain, Canada, and Japan.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/53f3b0496bb3f77221c03eed-659-1007/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.37.png" border="0" alt="Pew alcohol use"></p>
<h3>Divorce</h3>
<p>Even in conservative Middle Eastern countries, few consider divorce morally "unacceptable." The highest percentages of those who feel it is, however, come from African countries, such as Ghana (80%), Uganda (76%), and Nigeria (61%).</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/53f3b07d69bedd4941c03eed-655-1007/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.44.png" border="0" alt="Pew divorce"></p>
<h3>Contraception</h3>
<p>Contraceptive use is the most widely accepted of all the topics included in the survey. In 17 countries, the percentage of people saying it's morally "unacceptable" is in the single digits, and only in Pakistan, Nigeria, and Ghana did more than half of respondents feel that way.</p>
<h3><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/53f3b09369bedd5443c03eed-660-1008/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.58.png" border="0" alt="contraception Pew" style="color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"></h3><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/inglehart-welzel-culture-map-2014-7" >This Charts Explains Every Culture In The World</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-the-world-feels-about-8-moral-questions-2014-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-the-world-feels-about-8-moral-questions-2014-8These Charts Show How The World Feels About 8 Moral Issueshttp://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-the-world-feels-about-8-moral-questions-2014-8
Wed, 20 Aug 2014 17:35:00 -0400Christina Sterbenz
<p>What people find morally acceptable and unacceptable depends on where they live in the world.</p>
<p>The charts below from the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/04/15/global-morality/">Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project</a>&nbsp;show people's views on eight topics, often considered moral issues: extramarital affairs, gambling, homosexuality, abortion, premarital sex, alcohol consumption, divorce, and contraceptives.</p>
<p>Pew surveyed 40,117 respondents in 40 different countries in 2013 to obtain the data.</p>
<p>The first graphic below gives the median response across the world. People were the most disapproving of <span>extramarital affairs, with 78% calling them morally "unacceptable," while</span>&nbsp;14% of respondents, the lowest in the survey, felt contraceptive use was "unacceptable."&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Topics like premarital sex and alcohol use were most the polarizing.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/53f3b0f1eab8ea3266c03ef1-650-364/screenshot 2014-08-19 16.17.33.png" border="0" alt="Pew morality" style="line-height: 1.5em;"></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The rest of the charts, ordered from least-accepted topic to the most, show a breakdown of how various countries responded. The colors correspond to specific regions: green represents Asia/the Pacific; mauve, Europe; light blue, Latin America; peach, the Middle East, bright blue, North America; brown, Sub-Saharan Africa.</span></p>
<p>As Pew noted:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Generally, African and predominantly Muslim countries tend to find most of these activities morally unacceptable, while in advanced economies, such as those in Western Europe, Japan, and North America, people tend to be more accepting or to not consider these moral issues at all."</p>
<h3>Extramarital affairs</h3>
<p>More than half of people in all but one country — France — consider having an affair immoral.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/53f3aec8eab8eaf753a7abbd-662-1004/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.53.49.png" border="0" alt="Pew extramarital affairs"></p>
<h3>Gambling</h3>
<p>In Africa and the Middle East, large majorities label gambling "unacceptable." In France, Canada, and the U.S., however, fewer than one quarter feel that way.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/53f3af64eab8eaaa66c03eed-658-1008/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.53.58.png" border="0" alt="Pew gambling"></p>
<h3>Homosexuality</h3>
<p>More than 90% of respondents in seven countries (Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Jordan, Palestinian territories, Tunisia, and Uganda) say homosexuality is unacceptable. Europeans, however, are much less likely to say the same.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/53f3af9c6bb3f78b1fc03eed-653-1004/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.14.png" border="0" alt="homosexuality Pew"></p>
<h3>Abortion</h3>
<p>Half or more of respondents in 26 of the 40 countries believe abortions are morally unacceptable. People in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and mostly Muslim countries in Asia and the Middle East lean more toward calling it immoral, whereas Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan feel the opposite or indifferent.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/53f3afcbeab8ea7766c03eed-656-1006/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.24.png" border="0" alt="Pew abortion"></p>
<h3>Premarital Sex</h3>
<p>Muslim countries largely believe that sex before marriage is unacceptable, while about 10% or fewer respondents in Germany, France, and Spain say the same.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/53f3b02d6bb3f70920c03eed-658-1008/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.30.png" border="0" alt="Pew premarital sex"></p>
<h3>Alcohol</h3>
<p>Opinions on alcohol use vary across the 40 countries, but predominantly respondents in Muslim countries find it problematic. Fewer than 10% of respondents feel drinking is morally unacceptable in Britain, Canada, and Japan.&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/53f3b0496bb3f77221c03eed-659-1007/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.37.png" border="0" alt="Pew alcohol use"></p>
<h3>Divorce</h3>
<p>Even in conservative Middle Eastern countries, few consider divorce morally "unacceptable." The highest percentages of those who feel it is, however, come from African countries, such as Ghana (80%), Uganda (76%), and Nigeria (61%).</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/53f3b07d69bedd4941c03eed-655-1007/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.44.png" border="0" alt="Pew divorce"></p>
<h3>Contraception</h3>
<p>Contraceptive use is the most widely accepted of all the topics included in the survey. In 17 countries, the percentage of people saying it's morally "unacceptable" is in the single digits, and only in Pakistan, Nigeria, and Ghana did more than half of respondents feel that way.</p>
<h3><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/53f3b09369bedd5443c03eed-660-1008/screenshot 2014-08-19 15.54.58.png" border="0" alt="contraception Pew" style="color: #222222; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"></h3><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/inglehart-welzel-culture-map-2014-7" >This Charts Explains Every Culture In The World</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-the-world-feels-about-8-moral-questions-2014-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/taboo-issues-are-becoming-more-morally-acceptable-in-america-2014-6Here's What Americans Consider Moral And Immoralhttp://www.businessinsider.com/taboo-issues-are-becoming-more-morally-acceptable-in-america-2014-6
Sun, 08 Jun 2014 15:46:29 -0400Pamela Engel
<p>Divorce, pre-marital sex, stem cell research, and abortion are becoming more morally acceptable to Americans, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/170789/new-record-highs-moral-acceptability.aspx">according to a recent Gallup poll</a>.</p>
<p>The percentage of people who said these and other traditionally taboo issues are morally acceptable are at record highs, Gallup notes.</p>
<p>Below is a chart that displays the survey results, with an asterisk denoting the issues for which moral acceptability is at or near a record high:</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/538dd5ff6bb3f71966859ef6-800-/moral%20acceptability%20gallup%20chart.png" border="0" alt="Moral acceptability Gallup chart" width="800" /></p>
<p>Some issues, such as affairs and cloning humans, are still considered unacceptable, but even those areas are gaining traction and have a higher rate of moral acceptability than in past years.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, barely half of respondents said gay or lesbian relations were morally acceptable, but that rate is still a record high for the issue.</p>
<p>The difference in these rates over the past few years isn't drastic &mdash; <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/137357/four-moral-issues-sharply-divide-americans.aspx">2010 numbers are fairly similar</a> &mdash; but some issues that were contentious among the American people about 10 years ago have become largely acceptable today.</p>
<p>Americans have largely come to accept divorce, premarital sex, and homosexual relations <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/107380/cultural-tolerance-divorce-grows-70.aspx">since 2001</a>, when Gallup first conducted a moral acceptability poll.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In 2001, 59% of respondents considered divorce morally acceptable, 40% said homosexual relations were OK, and 53% approved of premarital sex. Today, those rates are at least 10 percentage points higher on each issue.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/taboo-issues-are-becoming-more-morally-acceptable-in-america-2014-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/taboo-issues-are-becoming-more-morally-acceptable-in-america-2014-6Here's What Americans Consider Moral And Immoralhttp://www.businessinsider.com/taboo-issues-are-becoming-more-morally-acceptable-in-america-2014-6
Tue, 03 Jun 2014 10:35:00 -0400Pamela Engel
<p>Divorce, pre-marital sex, stem cell research, and abortion are becoming more morally acceptable to Americans, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/170789/new-record-highs-moral-acceptability.aspx">according to a recent Gallup poll</a>.</p>
<p>The percentage of people who said these and other traditionally taboo issues are morally acceptable are at record highs, Gallup notes.</p>
<p>Below is a chart that displays the survey results, with an asterisk denoting the issues for which moral acceptability is at or near a record high:</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/538dd5ff6bb3f71966859ef6-800-/moral%20acceptability%20gallup%20chart.png" border="0" alt="Moral acceptability Gallup chart" width="800" /></p>
<p>Some issues, such as affairs and cloning humans, are still considered unacceptable, but even those areas are gaining traction and have a higher rate of moral acceptability than in past years.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, barely half of respondents said gay or lesbian relations were morally acceptable, but that rate is still a record high for the issue.</p>
<p>The difference in these rates over the past few years isn't drastic &mdash; <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/137357/four-moral-issues-sharply-divide-americans.aspx">2010 numbers are fairly similar</a> &mdash; but some issues that were contentious among the American people about 10 years ago have become largely acceptable today.</p>
<p>Americans have largely come to accept divorce, premarital sex, and homosexual relations <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/107380/cultural-tolerance-divorce-grows-70.aspx">since 2001</a>, when Gallup first conducted a moral acceptability poll.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In 2001, 59% of respondents considered divorce morally acceptable, 40% said homosexual relations were OK, and 53% approved of premarital sex. Today, those rates are at least 10 percentage points higher on each issue.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/taboo-issues-are-becoming-more-morally-acceptable-in-america-2014-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-good-people-do-bad-things-2014-516 Psychological Reasons Good People Do Bad Thingshttp://www.businessinsider.com/why-good-people-do-bad-things-2014-5
Sat, 10 May 2014 11:00:00 -0400Drake Baer
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/536a8205ecad04eb0309b1fb-480-/martha-stewart-28.jpg" border="0" alt="martha stewart" width="480" style="color: #000000;" />"The line between good and evil is permeable," said psychologist Philip Zimbardo, "</span>and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces."&nbsp;</p>
<p><span>As Zimbardo and other social scientists have shown in a range of experiments, actions we deem evil &mdash; cheating, lying, stealing, and worse &mdash; don't spring from people's character, but the situations they find themselves in.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>To better understand why, we examined research from the fields of psychology and ethics. Here's what we found.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Max Nisen and Aimee Groth contributed to this story.</em><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p><h3>When people have an ideology to justify their actions, they'll do bad things. </h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/536917f96da811fe76673a7a-400-300/when-people-have-an-ideology-to-justify-their-actions-theyll-do-bad-things.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Philip G. Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University, argues that people do evil things when they have an ideology &mdash; or system of ideals &mdash; to lean on.</p>
<p>He was an expert witness during the trial of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, who was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to five charges of abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>"All evil begins with a big ideology," Zimbardo <a href="http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2006/dec/zimbardo120705.html" target="_blank">said</a>. "What is the evil ideology about the Iraq war? National security. National security is the ideology that is used to justify torture in Brazil. You always begin with this big, good thing because once you have the big ideology then it&rsquo;s going to justify all the action."</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>When people are given power, they may abuse it.</h3>
<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/503be2ec6bb3f7402e000005-400-300/when-people-are-given-power-they-may-abuse-it.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Zimbardo is best-known for leading a jail simulation in 1971, popularly known as the <a href="http://www.prisonexp.org/" target="_blank">Stanford Prison Experiment</a>.</p>
<p>In the experiment, college students played the roles of "prisoners" or "guards."&nbsp;</p>
<p>In only six days, the "guards" were so abusive toward their "prisoners" that Zimbardo had to end the experiment early.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"The experiment showed that institutional forces and peer pressure led normal student volunteer guards to disregard the potential harm of their actions on the other student prisoners," the American Psychological Association <a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct04/goodbad.aspx" target="_blank">reports</a>.&nbsp;</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>If people wear a uniform, hood, or mask, they feel more anonymous — and more comfortable with being cruel.</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/536a76b96bb3f7640409b1fd-400-300/if-people-wear-a-uniform-hood-or-mask-they-feel-more-anonymous--and-more-comfortable-with-being-cruel.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>People can get more aggressive when they feel anonymous, Zimbardo <a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct04/goodbad.aspx" target="_blank">continued</a>.</p>
<p>When identities are concealed, violence increases.&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"You minimize social responsibility," </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Zimbardo</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;said. "Nobody knows who you are, so therefore you are not individually liable. There's also a group effect when all of you are masked. It provides a fear in other people because they can't see you, and you lose your humanity."</span></p>
<p>Anonymity also contributes to the viciousness of internet commenters,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/the-psychology-of-online-comments.html" target="_blank">social scientists suggest</a>.&nbsp;</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-good-people-do-bad-things-2014-5#having-tunnel-vision-on-goals-can-blind-people-to-the-consequences-of-their-actions-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-good-people-do-bad-things-2014-516 Psychological Reasons Good People Do Bad Thingshttp://www.businessinsider.com/why-good-people-do-bad-things-2014-5
Wed, 07 May 2014 15:37:46 -0400Drake Baer
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/536a8205ecad04eb0309b1fb-480-/martha-stewart-28.jpg" border="0" alt="martha stewart" width="480" style="color: #000000;" />"The line between good and evil is permeable," said psychologist Philip Zimbardo, "</span>and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces."&nbsp;</p>
<p><span>As Zimbardo and other social scientists have shown in a range of experiments, actions we deem evil &mdash; cheating, lying, stealing, and worse &mdash; don't spring from people's character, but the situations they find themselves in.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>To better understand why, we examined research from the fields of psychology and ethics. Here's what we found.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Max Nisen and Aimee Groth contributed to this story.</em><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p><h3>When people have an ideology to justify their actions, they'll do bad things. </h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/536917f96da811fe76673a7a-400-300/when-people-have-an-ideology-to-justify-their-actions-theyll-do-bad-things.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Philip G. Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University, argues that people do evil things when they have an ideology &mdash; or system of ideals &mdash; to lean on.</p>
<p>He was an expert witness during the trial of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, who was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to five charges of abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>"All evil begins with a big ideology," Zimbardo <a href="http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2006/dec/zimbardo120705.html" target="_blank">said</a>. "What is the evil ideology about the Iraq war? National security. National security is the ideology that is used to justify torture in Brazil. You always begin with this big, good thing because once you have the big ideology then it&rsquo;s going to justify all the action."</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>When people are given power, they may abuse it.</h3>
<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/503be2ec6bb3f7402e000005-400-300/when-people-are-given-power-they-may-abuse-it.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Zimbardo is best-known for leading a jail simulation in 1971, popularly known as the <a href="http://www.prisonexp.org/" target="_blank">Stanford Prison Experiment</a>.</p>
<p>In the experiment, college students played the roles of "prisoners" or "guards."&nbsp;</p>
<p>In only six days, the "guards" were so abusive toward their "prisoners" that Zimbardo had to end the experiment early.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"The experiment showed that institutional forces and peer pressure led normal student volunteer guards to disregard the potential harm of their actions on the other student prisoners," the American Psychological Association <a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct04/goodbad.aspx" target="_blank">reports</a>.&nbsp;</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>If people wear a uniform, hood, or mask, they feel more anonymous — and more comfortable with being cruel.</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/536a76b96bb3f7640409b1fd-400-300/if-people-wear-a-uniform-hood-or-mask-they-feel-more-anonymous--and-more-comfortable-with-being-cruel.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>People can get more aggressive when they feel anonymous, Zimbardo <a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct04/goodbad.aspx" target="_blank">continued</a>.</p>
<p>When identities are concealed, violence increases.&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"You minimize social responsibility," </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Zimbardo</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;said. "Nobody knows who you are, so therefore you are not individually liable. There's also a group effect when all of you are masked. It provides a fear in other people because they can't see you, and you lose your humanity."</span></p>
<p>Anonymity also contributes to the viciousness of internet commenters,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/the-psychology-of-online-comments.html" target="_blank">social scientists suggest</a>.&nbsp;</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-good-people-do-bad-things-2014-5#having-tunnel-vision-on-goals-can-blind-people-to-the-consequences-of-their-actions-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/neighbors-salary-is-more-important-than-yours-2014-3Brain Scientist Explains You Care How Much Money Your Neighbor Makeshttp://www.businessinsider.com/neighbors-salary-is-more-important-than-yours-2014-3
Sat, 15 Mar 2014 11:06:00 -0400Leslie Baehr
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/53221077ecad04694b9602cb-480-/peering-through-fence.jpg" border="0" alt="Peering Through Fence" width="480" /></p><p><span>Your salary is only acceptable if it's higher than your neighbor's.&nbsp;</span>At least that's what Yale cognitive scientist Paul Bloom's research might suggest.</p>
<p>On March 11 he gave a talk at The Bell House in Brooklyn for the <a href="http://secretscienceclub.blogspot.com/">Secret Science Club</a>. In the talk, Bloom gave some short highlights from his book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Just-Babies-Origins-Good-Evil/dp/0307886840">Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil</a>, which looks at where our sense of morality comes from.</p>
<p>During the talk, Bloom made it clear just how badly humans want to get the upper hand over our neighbors, even at a young age.</p>
<p><strong>We have an "exquisite sensitivity to getting less," Bloom said Tuesday.</strong></p>
<p>He described one experiment, in which researchers let kids from four to seven choose between two options: The kid and a stranger could both get a large number of poker chips that could be exchanged for toys (the "fair option"), or the kid could get fewer chips, but their partner would get an even smaller number ("the relative advantage option").</p>
<p>The children preferred getting fewer chips as long as they still have more chips than their partner.</p>
<p>"They don't care about fairness. What they want is relatively more," Bloom said in an interview with <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/60-minutes/">60 Minutes</a>. We can see this in our evolutionary cousins, the capuchin monkeys in the video below. They are perfectly happy getting cucumbers as treats, until their neighbor got ahold of some tasty grapes.</p>
<p>Then, they went berserk because of the extreme unfairness, even tossing the cucumber at the experimenter:</p>
<p><iframe width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/-KSryJXDpZo?rel=0"></iframe></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But luckily for society's peacefulness, it seems that we train ourselves not to think this way as we age.</span></p>
<p>When Bloom and his colleagues tried the experiment again with older children, they found the reverse. By around eight, more children began choosing the fair option (six chips for me and six for you) rather than the relative-advantage option (four for me, but two for you). By nine or ten years of age, children would even take a lower reward in order to give the other person more.</p>
<p>"They've been educated. They've been acculturated. They've had their heads stuffed full of the virtues that we might want to have their heads stuffed with," Bloom told 60 Minutes.</p>
<p>Even as adults, we know that we are influenced by natural biases and we work hard to subvert them. For example, the constitution was designed to block our worst impulses, Bloom suggested Tuesday. "We are smart enough to create social institutions like blind auditions to override the parts of ourselves we hate the most" he said.</p>
<p>For more on his work, check out the <a href="http://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/?ftag=ACQ518ad43&amp;vndid=60-Minutes">60 Minutes</a> interview with Bloom below:<iframe width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/FRvVFW85IcU?rel=0"></iframe></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aquasprouts-system-transforms-fish-tank-into-garden-2014-3" >A College Student Has Figured Out How To Grow Food Using Your Old Fish Tank</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/neighbors-salary-is-more-important-than-yours-2014-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/neighbors-salary-is-more-important-than-yours-2014-3Brain Scientist Explains Why You Care How Much Money Your Neighbor Makeshttp://www.businessinsider.com/neighbors-salary-is-more-important-than-yours-2014-3
Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:40:00 -0400Leslie Baehr
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/53221077ecad04694b9602cb-480-/peering-through-fence.jpg" border="0" alt="Peering Through Fence" width="480" /></p><p><span>Your salary is only acceptable if it's higher than your neighbor's.&nbsp;</span>At least that's what Yale cognitive scientist Paul Bloom's research might suggest.</p>
<p>On March 11 he gave a talk at The Bell House in Brooklyn for the <a href="http://secretscienceclub.blogspot.com/">Secret Science Club</a>. In the talk, Bloom gave some short highlights from his book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Just-Babies-Origins-Good-Evil/dp/0307886840">Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil</a>, which looks at where our sense of morality comes from.</p>
<p>During the talk, Bloom made it clear just how badly humans want to get the upper hand over our neighbors, even at a young age.</p>
<p><strong>We have an "exquisite sensitivity to getting less," Bloom said Tuesday.</strong></p>
<p>He described one experiment, in which researchers let kids from four to seven choose between two options: The kid and a stranger could both get a large number of poker chips that could be exchanged for toys (the "fair option"), or the kid could get fewer chips, but their partner would get an even smaller number ("the relative advantage option").</p>
<p>The children preferred getting fewer chips as long as they still have more chips than their partner.</p>
<p>"They don't care about fairness. What they want is relatively more," Bloom said in an interview with <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/60-minutes/">60 Minutes</a>. We can see this in our evolutionary cousins, the capuchin monkeys in the video below. They are perfectly happy getting cucumbers as treats, until their neighbor got ahold of some tasty grapes.</p>
<p>Then, they went berserk because of the extreme unfairness, even tossing the cucumber at the experimenter:</p>
<p><iframe width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/-KSryJXDpZo?rel=0"></iframe></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But luckily for society's peacefulness, it seems that we train ourselves not to think this way as we age.</span></p>
<p>When Bloom and his colleagues tried the experiment again with older children, they found the reverse. By around eight, more children began choosing the fair option (six chips for me and six for you) rather than the relative-advantage option (four for me, but two for you). By nine or ten years of age, children would even take a lower reward in order to give the other person more.</p>
<p>"They've been educated. They've been acculturated. They've had their heads stuffed full of the virtues that we might want to have their heads stuffed with," Bloom told 60 Minutes.</p>
<p>Even as adults, we know that we are influenced by natural biases and we work hard to subvert them. For example, the constitution was designed to block our worst impulses, Bloom suggested Tuesday. "We are smart enough to create social institutions like blind auditions to override the parts of ourselves we hate the most" he said.</p>
<p>For more on his work, check out the <a href="http://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/?ftag=ACQ518ad43&amp;vndid=60-Minutes">60 Minutes</a> interview with Bloom below:<iframe width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/FRvVFW85IcU?rel=0"></iframe></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aquasprouts-system-transforms-fish-tank-into-garden-2014-3" >A College Student Has Figured Out How To Grow Food Using Your Old Fish Tank</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/neighbors-salary-is-more-important-than-yours-2014-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-its-hard-to-be-ethical-on-wall-street-2013-11A Former Trader Explains How He Used To Mess With Japanese Clientshttp://www.businessinsider.com/why-its-hard-to-be-ethical-on-wall-street-2013-11
Tue, 26 Nov 2013 10:40:00 -0500Chris Arnade
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5294c0e4ecad046e20c97175-480-/wolf-of-wall-street-6.jpg" border="0" alt="wolf of wall street" width="480" /></p><p>My first year on Wall Street, 1993, I was paid 14 times more than I earned the prior year and three times more than my father's best year. For that money, I helped my company create financial products that were disguised to look simple, but which required complex math to properly understand. That first year I was roundly applauded by my bosses, who told me I was clever, and to my surprise they gave me $20,000 bonus beyond my salary.</p>
<p>The products were sold to many investors, many who didn&rsquo;t fully understand what they were buying, most of them what we called &ldquo;clueless Japanese.&rdquo; The profits to my company were huge &ndash; hundreds of millions of dollars huge. The main product that made my firm great money for close to five years was was called, in typically dense finance jargon, a YIF, or a Yield Indexed Forward.</p>
<p>Eventually, investors got wise, realizing what they had bought was complex, loaded with hidden leverage, and became most dangerous during moments of distress.</p>
<p>I never did meet the buyers; that was someone else's job. I stayed behind the spreadsheets. My job was to try to extract as much value as possible through math and clever trading. Japan would send us faxes of documents from our competitors. Many were selling far weirder products and doing it in far larger volume than we were. The conversation with our Japanese customers would end with them urging us on: &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t fall behind.&rdquo;</p>
<p>When I did ask, rather naively, if this was all kosher, I would be assured multiple times that multiple lawyers and multiple managers had approved the sales.</p>
<p>One senior trader, consoling me late at night, reminded me, &ldquo;You are playing in the big leagues now. If a customer wants a red suit, you sell them a red suit. If that customer is Japanese, you charge him twice what it costs.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I rationalized that our group was careful by Wall Street standards, trying to stay close to the letter of the law. We tried to abide by an unwritten "five-point rule": never intentionally make more than five percentage points of profit from a customer.</p>
<p>Some competitors didn&rsquo;t care about the rule. They were making 7% or 10% profit per trade from clients, selling exotic products loaded with hidden traps. I assumed they would eventually face legal charges, or at least public embarrassment, for pushing so clearly away from the spirit of the law.</p>
<p>They didn&rsquo;t. Rather, they got paid better, were lauded as true risk takers, and offered big pay packages to manage similar businesses.</p>
<p>Being paid very well also helped ease any of my concerns. Feeling guilty, kid? Here take a big check. I was, for the first time in my life, feeling valued for my math skills &ndash; the ones I had to hide throughout my childhood, so as not be labeled a nerd or egghead. Ego and money are nice salves for any potential feeling of guilt.</p>
<p>After a few years on Wall Street it was clear to me: you could make money by gaming anyone and everything. The more clever you were, the more ingenious your ability to exploit a flaw in a law or regulation, the more lauded and celebrated you became.</p>
<p>Nobody seemed to be getting called out. No move was too audacious. It was like driving past the speed limit at 79 MPH, and watching others pass by at 100, or 110, and never seeing anyone pulled over.</p>
<p>Wall Street did nod and wave politely to regulators&rsquo; attempts to slow things down. Every employee had to complete a yearly compliance training, where he was updated on things like money laundering, collusion, insider trading, and selling our customers only financial products that were suitable to them.</p>
<p>By the early 2000s that compliance training had descended into a once-a-year farce, designed to literally just check a box. It became a one-hour lecture held in a massive hall. Everyone had to go once, listen to the rushed presentation, and then sign a form. You could look down at the audience and see row after row of blue buttoned shirts playing on their Blackberries. I reached new highs on Brick Breaker one year during compliance training. My compliance education that year was still complete.</p>
<p>By 2007 the idea of ethics education fell even further. You didn't even need to show up to a lecture hall; you just had to log on to an online course. It was one hour of slides that you worked through, blindly pushing the &ldquo;forward&rdquo; button while your attention was somewhere else. Some managers, too busy for such nonsense, even paid younger employees to sit at their computers and do it for them.</p>
<p>As Wall Street grew, fueled by that unchecked culture of risk taking, traders got more and more audacious, and corruption became more and more diffused through the system. By 2006 you could open up almost any major business, look at its inside workings, and find some wrongdoing.</p>
<p>After the crash of 2008, regulators finally did exactly that. What has resulted is a wave of scandals with odd names; LIBOR fixing, FX collusion, ISDA Fix.</p>
<p>To outsiders they sound like complex acronyms that occupy the darkest corners of Wall Street, easily dismissed as anomalies. They are not. LIBOR, FX, ISDA Fix are at the very center of finance, part of the daily flow of trillions of dollars. The scandals are scarily close to what some on Wall Street believe is standard business practice, a matter of shades of grey.</p>
<p>I imagine the people who are named in the scandals are genuinely confused as to why they are being singled out. They were just doing what almost everyone else was, maybe just more aggressive, more reckless. They were doing what they had been trained to do: bending the rules, pushing as far as they could to beat competitors. They had been applauded in the past for their aggressive risk taking, no doubt. Now they are just whipping boys.</p>
<p>That's the paradox at the core of the settlements we're seeing: where is the real responsibility? Others were doing it, yes. Banks should be fined, yes. But somebody should be charged. Yet the people who really should be held accountable have not. They are the bosses, the managers and CEOs of the businesses. They set the standard, they shaped the culture. The Chuck Princes, Dick Fulds, and Fred Goodwins of the world. They happily shepherded and profited from a Wall Street that spun out of control.</p>
<p>A precedent needs to be set, to slow down Wall Street&rsquo;s wild behavior. A reminder that rules are there to be followed, not exploited. The managers knew what was going on. Ask anyone who works at a bank and they will tell you that.</p>
<p>The excuse we have long accepted is ignorance: that these leaders couldn't have known what was happening. That doesn't suffice. If they didn't know, it's an even larger sin.</p>
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<p>This article originally appeared on <a rel="canonical">guardian.co.uk</a></p>
<p><img class="nc_pixel" src="http://pixel.newscred.com/px.gif?key=YXJ0aWNsZT0yMjUwN2NjODhhYzA1NDIwMmM2ZGI0N2ZjMzMzZTMzMiZvd25lcj01ZGYyMDgwZWQ3Y2QxN2VjMjVhYWU2ZTkwYWU2MzNmMiZub25jZT1lMmY5ZDczNC01ZjRmLTQ1YzUtYWIwNi01MWJiNGVmNWZlMjYmcHVibGlzaGVyPThjMDBmYmVlNjFkNWJjZjBjNjA5MmQ4YjkyZWJiY2Ex" border="0" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-its-hard-to-be-ethical-on-wall-street-2013-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/studying-ethics-may-cause-people-to-act-unethically-2013-11Studying Ethics May Cause People To Act Unethicallyhttp://www.businessinsider.com/studying-ethics-may-cause-people-to-act-unethically-2013-11
Wed, 20 Nov 2013 14:57:40 -0500Oliver Burkeman
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/528d0d9ceab8ea0314969d35-480-/robber-thief-graffiti.jpg" border="0" alt="robber thief graffiti" width="480" /></p><p>Ethical philosophy isn't the most scintillating of subjects, but it has its moments. Take, for example, the work of the U.S. philosopher <a href="http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/" title="">Eric Schwitzgebel</a>, who's spent a large chunk of his career confirming the entertaining finding that ethicists aren't very ethical.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/ethics" title="More from the Guardian on Ethics">Ethics</a> books, it turns out, are <a href="http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/EthicsBooks.htm" title="">more likely to be stolen from libraries</a> than other philosophy books. Ethics professors are <a href="http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/EthSelfRep.htm" title="">more likely to believe that eating animals is wrong</a>, but no less likely to eat meat.</p>
<p>They're also more likely to say giving to charity is a moral obligation, but they were less likely than other philosophers to return a questionnaire when researchers promised to donate to charity if they did. Back when the American Philosophical Association charged for some meetings using an honesty system, ethicists were <a href="http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/EthReg.htm" title="">no less likely to freeload</a>.</p>
<p>One take on this is that ethicists are terrible hypocrites. <a href="http://philosophybites.com/2013/09/eric-schwitzgebel-on-the-ethical-behaviour-of-ethics-professors.html" title="">As Schwitzgebel points out</a>, that's not necessarily as bad as it sounds: If philosophers were obliged to live by their findings, that might exert a "distortive pressure" on their work, tempting them to reach more self-indulgent conclusions about the moral life. (And there's a&nbsp;case to be made, after all, that it's better for people to preach the right thing but not practice it than to do neither.)</p>
<p>But another possibility bears thinking about. It's plausible to suggest that ethicists have an unusually strong sense of what's right and wrong; that's what they spend their days pondering, after all. What if their overdeveloped sense of morality &mdash; their confidence that they know what's what, ethically speaking &mdash; makes them <em>less</em> likely to act ethically in real life?</p>
<p>This would be an intriguing twist on&nbsp;"<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/06/our-moral-thermostat-why-being-good-can-give-people-licens/" title="">moral licensing</a>,"&nbsp;the deep-seated human tendency that leaves us feeling entitled to do something bad&nbsp;because we've already done something good. It explains why people give up plastic bags, then feel justified in taking a long-haul flight, obliterating the carbon savings. It's also why, if you give people a chance to condemn sexist statements, they'll subsequently be <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11474723" title="">more likely to favor hiring a man</a> in a male-dominated profession.</p>
<p>Could it be that merely doing the mental work of figuring out what's right ticks an internal "morality" box, so licensing "moral" people to act as badly as anyone else? (Or worse: remember those library books.) This is speculation, but if it's right, the implications would reach beyond philosophers. Smugness might not just be annoying to others; it could actively make smug people less moral.</p>
<p>The broader peril here &mdash; that we might fail to do what we ought to do&nbsp;<em>because</em>&nbsp;we know we ought to do it &mdash; threatens to undermine personal happiness, too. Consider this extreme example: about a decade ago, the multimillionaire banker Rajat Gupta gave a speech about the dangers of becoming super-rich.</p>
<p>"You have to watch out for it," he said. "Because the more you have, the more you get used to comforts [and] big houses and vacation homes, and going and doing whatever you want. So it is very seductive." He knew the unrestrained pursuit of material wealth wasn't the path to happiness.</p>
<p>But last year Gupta <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jun/15/rajat-gupta-guilty-leaking-insider">was convicted of conspiracy and fraud</a> in the Galleon hedge fund case, the biggest insider trading scandal in U.S. history. You can't really say he should have known better: clearly he did. Was it his confidence in his knowledge that caused him to forget himself? Was knowing better the problem?</p>
<p><img class="nc_pixel" src="http://pixel.newscred.com/px.gif?key=YXJ0aWNsZT02NzNjMGZhMmI5NDM2MDVhOGExYmU0NTcwZDc4YmJmNiZvd25lcj01ZGYyMDgwZWQ3Y2QxN2VjMjVhYWU2ZTkwYWU2MzNmMiZub25jZT03MzZiZGQwNC01MjYyLTRjZDItOTNiYy0wNzk3ZjNiM2IyYzAmcHVibGlzaGVyPThjMDBmYmVlNjFkNWJjZjBjNjA5MmQ4YjkyZWJiY2Ex" border="0" alt="" width="1" height="1" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;" /></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/studying-ethics-may-cause-people-to-act-unethically-2013-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/youre-more-likely-to-cheat-in-the-afternoon-2013-10You're More Likely To Lie And Cheat In The Afternoonhttp://www.businessinsider.com/youre-more-likely-to-cheat-in-the-afternoon-2013-10
Thu, 31 Oct 2013 16:01:00 -0400Shaunacy Ferro
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5272a6ea6bb3f795075893ae-480-/cheating-cards-money-in-shoe-1.jpg" border="0" alt="cheating cards money in shoe" width="480" /></p><p>Being an upright citizen of the world is hard work. As the day goes on, the psychological toll of keeping our moral compasses pointed due north wears upon us, and by the afternoon, we struggle not to cheat and lie.</p>
<p>People are more likely to resist opportunities to behave dishonestly in the morning, according to a new study from Harvard University and the University of Utah, which used four different experiments to gauge whether the time of day might affect moral behaviors.</p>
<p>The first two experiments asked undergrad students to complete a visual perception task identifying the number of dots on the left or right side of the screen. The participants were paid by how many trials they completed, not whether their answers were correct, and they were given more money if they claimed there were more dots on the right side. The second two experiments used a sample of participants from across the U.S., using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Participants in one group were told to send either a truthful or a deceptive message to a virtual partner, in exchange for 25 cents for a truthful message and 50 cents for a false one. The other group was asked to solve puzzles for money, but they didn't have to prove they solved them, only claim that they did.</p>
<p>In each of the tasks, participants had a clear financial incentive to cheat, and in each, people were more likely to cheat if they completed the experiment in the afternoon than in the morning. People who in surveys revealed themselves to be more honest overall &mdash; or at least to feel guilty when cheating &mdash; were more likely to experience this afternoon effect.</p>
<p>(People who said that behaving unethically didn't cause them distress were likely to cheat at any time.)</p>
<p class="float_left"><img class="float_left" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5272a13aeab8eaa15b7d3d0d-466-350/moral-disengagement-chart.jpg" border="0" alt="moral disengagement chart" width="480" /></p>
<p>"In other words, our findings suggest that mere time of day can lead to a systematic failure of good people to act morally," the researchers write. This follows similar research that suggests self-control is like a <a href="http://psyserv06.psy.sbg.ac.at:5916/fetch/PDF/10978569.pdf">muscle</a> that gets tired with too much use, or a <a href="http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/06/08/brain-imaging-suggests-self-control-can-be-depleted/39897.html">pool</a> that gets depleted over time. After enough small decisions throughout the day, we're unable to control ourselves, and will lie for an extra 25 cents from a psych survey.</p>
<p>The study is published in <em><a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/10/28/0956797613498099.abstract">Psychological Science</a></em>.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/people-look-more-attractive-in-groups-2013-10" >Barney Stinson's 'Cheerleader Effect' Is Real — People Look More Attractive In Groups</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/youre-more-likely-to-cheat-in-the-afternoon-2013-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/what-3-tricks-will-get-people-including-yourself-to-do-things-right-2013-6How To Make Sure People Do Things Right The First Timehttp://www.businessinsider.com/what-3-tricks-will-get-people-including-yourself-to-do-things-right-2013-6
Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:08:21 -0400Eric Barker
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/51c03f26ecad04d529000006-480-/talking-google-working-stamped-bi-dng.jpg" border="0" alt="talking, google, working, stamped, bi, dng" width="480" /></p><p>Google Reader is being <a href="http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2013/03/powering-down-google-reader.html">shut down on July 1st</a>. Sign up for my mailing list to make sure you don't miss anything. Join <a href="http://eepurl.com/o6uAD">here</a>.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">What does it take to get people to do things right?</h2>
<p>It&rsquo;s an important question.</p>
<p>And the answer is not as hard as you might think.</p>
<p>But as you&rsquo;ll see, a lot of people had to die before someone realized what works.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">1) Make a checklist</h3>
<p>I&rsquo;ve posted before about <a href="http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2011/02/whats-something-simple-that-can-make-your-wor/">the power of checklists</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312430000?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=spacforrent-20">Atul Gawande&rsquo;s excellent book on the subject</a>.</p>
<p>We&rsquo;re all prone to simple errors.</p>
<p>And in some fields these errors are quite costly. In medicine, people can die:</p>
<p>Via&nbsp;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A07FR4W/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00A07FR4W&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=spacforrent-20">The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Peter Pronovost is an anesthesiologist and critical-care specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Pronovost had noticed that about forty thousand people in the United States died each year from infections caused by central line catheters&mdash; intravenous tubes placed in patients as part of their treatment.&nbsp;<strong>These deaths typically showed up as &ldquo;complications&rdquo; from surgery, but were completely preventable. Yet the number of people dying from these infections was equal to the number of women dying from breast cancer each year.</strong></p>
<p>Checklists are powerful for straightforward tasks like this &mdash; but only if people use them.</p>
<p>How often did doctors use them after Pronovost put them together?</p>
<p>The compliance rate was only 38%.</p>
<p><strong>Thirty-eight percent.</strong></p>
<p>That&rsquo;s what happens when you ask <strong>very smart people</strong> to do something <strong>that saves lives</strong>.</p>
<p>What hope is there for less intelligent people on average tasks?</p>
<p>So how do you implement a checklist so that people actually use it?</p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">2) Make it easy to comply through preparation</h3>
<p>Pronovost put all the required elements for the checklist activities in to one accessible place.</p>
<p>Boom &mdash; compliance rose to 70%.</p>
<p>Via&nbsp;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A07FR4W/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00A07FR4W&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=spacforrent-20">The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">He quickly realized that a major part of the problem was that the supplies were scattered in different places, requiring doctors and nurses to gather gloves, masks, drapes, and tubes from various locations. <strong>He created a &ldquo;central line cart&rdquo; so that everything a doctor would need was readily available in one place. Compliance rose to 70 percent&hellip;</strong></p>
<p>But 70% isn&rsquo;t 100% &mdash; and in this case we&rsquo;re talking about human lives.</p>
<p>What does it take to get people to do things right &mdash; all the time?</p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">3) Put someone in charge of compliance</h3>
<p>You get lazy. You get overconfident in your abilities. Lists can seem demeaning, like you&rsquo;re second guessing yourself.</p>
<p>So even when there&rsquo;s a list and it&rsquo;s easy to use, you can ignore it.</p>
<p>How do you overcome this?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/07/whats-the-trick-to-self-control-better-habits/">Reminders</a> are powerful.</p>
<p>And something in charge of reminding you &mdash; whether it&rsquo;s a person or an alarm on your phone &mdash; can make all the difference.</p>
<p>Via&nbsp;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A07FR4W/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00A07FR4W&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=spacforrent-20">The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">He had no doubt that the doctors wanted to take excellent care of their patients and that they could readily enumerate the items on the checklist if asked. The problem was that the physicians simply didn&rsquo;t focus on the mundane tasks. So <strong>Pronovost took the unusual step of placing the nurses in charge of compliance.</strong> Hospitals, like many other organizations, are hierarchical, and doctors are at the top of the heap. But Pronovost sat down with the staff and explained what he was trying to achieve and why it was so important. At first, the doctors saw it as an effort to undermine their authority, while the nurses worried that it would open them up to criticism. But&nbsp;Pronovost convinced all parties to try the new approach. <strong>Within a year, the rate of infection dropped nearly to zero.&nbsp;</strong></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">So what do you do now?</h3>
<ol>
<li>Make a checklist.</li>
<li>Put everything needed to execute it in one place ahead of time.</li>
<li>Make sure you have a reminder &mdash; someone or something to bug you.</li>
</ol>
<p>If it can save lives, it can certainly make a difference in your life.</p>
<p><strong>Join 45K+ readers.</strong>&nbsp;Get a free weekly update via email&nbsp;<a href="http://eepurl.com/o6uAD">here</a>.<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>Related posts:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/01/interview-negotiation-secrets-learn-top-fbi-hostage-negotiator/">INTERVIEW &ndash; The top FBI hostage negotiator teaches you the 5 secrets to getting what you want</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/04/influence-others/">What&rsquo;s the best way to influence others?</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/05/the-last-damn-thing-youll-ever-need-to-read-a-8759/">The last damn thing you&rsquo;ll ever need to read about influence, persuasion and negotiation</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/06/do-things-right/">What 3 tricks will get people (including yourself) to do things right?</a> appeared first on <a href="http://www.bakadesuyo.com">Barking Up The Wrong Tree</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Read more posts on <a href="http://www.bakadesuyo.com/">Barking Up The Wrong Tree &raquo;</a></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-3-tricks-will-get-people-including-yourself-to-do-things-right-2013-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/money-will-weaken-your-moral-compass-2013-6New Study Shows That Just Thinking About Money Makes People Jerkshttp://www.businessinsider.com/money-will-weaken-your-moral-compass-2013-6
Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:26:51 -0400Steven Perlberg
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/51bb69446bb3f7601e000000-480-/money-piggy-bank.png" border="0" alt="money piggy bank" width="480" /></p><p>It seems like whenever lottery winners make headlines years after they cash in, it's never for good news.</p>
<p>Divorces, lawsuits, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/30m-lottery-winner-abraham-shakespeare-feared-murdered-jackpot-article-1.164854">the occasional murder</a>&nbsp;<span>&mdash;</span>&nbsp;big time bank accounts can mean big time life problems.</p>
<p>Money corrupts. And now you can just blame science.</p>
<p>The New York Times' Eduardo Porter reports on a new study out of Harvard and the University of Utah that suggests money actually changes the way we think, weakening our moral compass.&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/how-money-affects-morality/">From the Times</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The researchers performed a suite of experiments on several hundred undergraduates. First they exposed some to phrases like &ldquo;she spends money liberally&rdquo; or pictures that would make them think of money, and others to images and phrases that had nothing to do with the stuff.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span>Then they made them answer questions to flesh out whether their morals would flag in the presence of temptation, and how they articulated the behavior to themselves.</span></p>
<p>Participants coached to think about money demonstrated weaker ethics in the questionnaire. Moreover, the students reasoned through the questions via cost-benefit analysis, eschewing the kind of morality that gets in the way of pragmatic thinking.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">For instance, they were more likely to answer that they would filch a ream of paper from the university&rsquo;s copying room. They were more likely to lie for a financial gain and explain it to themselves as &ldquo;primarily a business decision.&rdquo;</p>
<p>There you have it.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/money-will-weaken-your-moral-compass-2013-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-people-commit-fraud-2013-525 Psychological Traps That Lead 'Good' People To Commit Fraudhttp://www.businessinsider.com/why-people-commit-fraud-2013-5
Tue, 28 May 2013 13:27:00 -0400Max Nisen and Aimee Groth
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/51a4e6c169bedd766f000000-400-/jeffrey-skilling-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Jeffrey Skilling" width="400" />Many white collar crimes aren't committed by hardened criminals. It's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/clay-christensen-how-will-you-measure-your-life-2012-5">often normally moral people under financial strain</a>, those under severe pressure from their bosses or shareholders, or people who get away with something minor then try to to test their limits.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So what exactly leads otherwise normal and hardworking people to cross the line?&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That's the subject of </span><a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">a paper</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> by </span><a href="http://www.rsm.nl/people/muel-kaptein/">Dr. Muel Kaptein</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of the Rotterdam School Of Management.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">We've collected some of the key insights and cognitive biases as a guide of what to look out for in a workplace.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">Thanks to Dr. Kaptein for letting us feature his work.&nbsp;</em></p><h3>Tunnel vision</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4e244a8ccadcbb21200f0000-400-300/tunnel-vision.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Setting and achieving goals is important, but <strong>single-minded focus on them can blind people</strong> to ethical concerns.&nbsp;</p>
<p>When Enron offered large bonuses to employees for bringing in sales, they became so focused on that goal that they forgot to make sure they were profitable or moral. We all know how that ended.</p>
<p><em>Source: <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">Muel Kaptein</a>&nbsp;</em></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>The power of names</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/502c1f7569beddde37000015-400-300/the-power-of-names.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>When bribery becomes "greasing the wheels" or accounting fraud becomes "financial engineering," unethical behavior can seem less bad.</p>
<p>The <strong>use of nicknames and euphemisms for questionable practices</strong> can free them of their moral connotations, making them seem more acceptable.</p>
<p><em>Source:&nbsp;<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">Muel Kaptein</a></em></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>Social bond theory</h3>
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4f54d1f369beddce53000001-400-300/social-bond-theory.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>In large organizations, <strong>employees can begin to feel more like numbers or cogs in a machine</strong> than individuals.</p>
<p>When people feel detached from the goals and leadership of their workplace, they are more likely to commit fraud, steal, or hurt the company via neglect.</p>
<p><em>Source:&nbsp;<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117396">Muel Kaptein</a></em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-people-commit-fraud-2013-5#the-galatea-effect-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-greedier-than-ever-2013-4Secretly, Some Wall Streeters Think The Industry Is Greedier Than Everhttp://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-greedier-than-ever-2013-4
Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:03:29 -0400Joshua Brown
<blockquote>
<p><em><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4ea9693969bedd5561000029-590-440/gekko.jpg" border="0" alt="Gordon Gekko" />&ldquo;I meet a lot of these people on Wall Street on a regular basis right now...I am going to put it very bluntly: I regard the moral environment as pathological. And I am talking about the human interactions . . . I&rsquo;ve not seen anything like this, not felt it so palpably...They have no responsibility to pay taxes; they have no responsibility to their clients; they have no responsibility to people, to counterparties in transactions...They are tough, greedy, aggressive and feel absolutely out of control in a quite literal sense, and they have gamed the system to a remarkable extent.&rdquo;</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The above comes from a no-holds-barred talk Jeffrey Sachs gave that literally stunned the crowd at a recent conference focused on fixing the financial system.</p>
<p>There are many industry insiders and watchers who agree with Mr. Sachs that things are more disgusting than ever, thanks in part to the de facto guarantee that none of the surviving institutions post-crisis are going to be touchable for new offenses. The government has admitted as much with their brand new Too Big To Prosecute mentality. Yes, this exists, in recent congressional testimony from&nbsp;<a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/big-banks-go-wrong-but-pay-a-little-price/" target="_blank">Eric Holder, US Attorney General</a>, the following incredible comment was given a public airing (but then The Voice came on that night and we all forgot about it):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&ldquo;I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute &mdash; if we do bring a criminal charge &mdash; it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,&rdquo; Mr. Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee. &ldquo;I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I see this attitude creeping back along with the fund flows and the major stock market averages. Everyone on The Street can feel it. The thing is, most people are someone's payroll or are benefitting from the new Niagara Falls of legal and investment fees to some extent. They have no incentive to open up the way Jeffrey Sachs does here. The politicians on both sides are similarly silent, having taken in more than a quarter of a billion from The Street during the last election year.</p>
<p>Business as usual and the music's playing once again - we're all dancing.</p>
<p>Sources:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/wall_st_criminal_behavior_Rg3GqOXPwjJqrYFWV0tyEJ" target="_blank"><strong>Influential economist says Wall Street's full of 'crooks'&nbsp;(New York Post)</strong></a></p>
<p><a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/big-banks-go-wrong-but-pay-a-little-price/" target="_blank"><strong>Realities Behind Prosecuting Big Banks (DealBook)</strong></a></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2013/04/21/it-would-be-hilarious-if-it-werent-so-frightening/" target="_blank"><strong>It would be hilarious if it weren&rsquo;t so frightening. (TRB)</strong></a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-greedier-than-ever-2013-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-stop-low-morale-from-spreading-2013-4How To Stop Low Morale From Spreadinghttp://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-stop-low-morale-from-spreading-2013-4
Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:34:00 -0400Donna Fuscaldo
<p><span><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5177faa069bedda654000000-400-300/upset-guy-work-sad-5.png" border="0" alt="upset guy work sad" width="400" height="300" />Low morale can be infectious and it only takes one employee to poison an entire office. If left unchecked, it can actually cripple a company, regardless of its size.</span></p>
<p><span>"</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The most common examples of morale issues are the hardest to discern and potentially the most dangerous," says Laura T. Kerekes, chief knowledge officer at human resources consulting company,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ThinkHR-Reviews-E445548.htm">Think HR</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s where employees are physically present on the job but not engaged emotionally.&rdquo;</span></p>
<p>Once morale becomes an issue, companies are apt to experience&nbsp;<a href="http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/5-tips-banish-boredom-work/">productivity problems</a>&nbsp;that can hurt the bottom line. For instance, workers may take more time off, take longer to complete assignments and spend more time gossiping about the wrong doings of the company or supervisor, says Kerekes. If the situation isn&rsquo;t corrected, really disgruntled employees may engage in workplace sabotage and even violence.</p>
<p>But a company doesn&rsquo;t have to let it get that far. Taking a few proactive steps will ensure low morale doesn&rsquo;t become a company-wide issue.</p>
<p>&ldquo;If low morale is present managers have to take a really proactive stance on it and have to identify the cause,&rdquo; says Paul McDonald, senior executive director of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Robert-Half-International-EI_IE1838.11,36.htm">Robert Half International</a>. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t address it, it takes on a life of its own and sends the rumor mill into overdrive.&rdquo;</p>
<p>According to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.glassdoor.com/Job/human-resources-jobs-SRCH_KO0,15.htm">human resources experts</a>, good managers will always have their pulse on the morale of his or her employees and will be able to know immediately if morale is starting to dip. But knowing and doing are two different things, which means if a company wants to prevent the low morale from spreading, they have to address it head on with the employee as soon as they get a whiff of it.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Having the emotional intelligence and savvy to know what employees are thinking and feeling, and being able to nip issues that may have a negative impact on morale in the bud before they have a chance to spread is critical to a company&rsquo;s overall success,&rdquo; says Kerekes. &ldquo;In my experience, morale issues get out of hand when the situation is allowed to fester and leadership is ignoring or avoiding the tough conversation in the hopes that it will correct itself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>According to McDonald, managers need to meet with their direct reports formally and informally on a regular basis both in groups and one-on-one if they want to quickly identify any changes in morale. McDonald also says managers that go out of their way to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/place-workits-compensation/">reward</a>&nbsp;employees for a job well done are less likely to suffer from morale problems than those that never reward their employees. &ldquo;Many times the recognition is left to the HR department. The best managers tailor it to each person and don&rsquo;t leave it up to HR,&rdquo; says McDonald.</p>
<p>While low morale can come out of nowhere, usually when it&rsquo;s widespread, it&rsquo;s due to changes in the company, whether it&rsquo;s a new business direction or&nbsp;<a href="http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/layoffs-avoid/">layoffs</a>, and a lack of communication on the topic. That&rsquo;s why it&rsquo;s important for the company to communicate with its employees, especially if there are big changes adrift. According to Kerekes, if managers watch for signs of low morale like reduced productivity and actively communicate what they can share about what&rsquo;s happening in the business, they have a good shot of isolating the morale issues and correcting it before it gets out of hand.</p>
<p>If the low morale is coming from one person, experts say it&rsquo;s critical that someone within the company, preferably a manager or supervisor, sits down with the person to figure out what&rsquo;s going on. The complaints may be something that is easily fixed. If the manager can&rsquo;t rectify it, it&rsquo;s time to get HR involved. If the company bashing still doesn&rsquo;t end or the person&rsquo;s work suffers the best option may be to let the disgruntled employee go. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t want to jump to that conclusion first,&rdquo; cautions McDonald.</p>
<p>Even if it&rsquo;s one person that&rsquo;s creating all the problems, the company shouldn&rsquo;t treat the incident in isolation. Yes, the manager has to speak one-on-one to the unhappy employee but they should also assume more employees are suffering from low morale. &ldquo;Even when an employee says &lsquo;we all feel the same way,&rsquo; it is incumbent on the leader to follow up with each team member to understand the issues and to problem solve for workable solutions,&rdquo; says Kerekes.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-stop-low-morale-from-spreading-2013-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/frans-de-waal-on-human-morality-2013-4Primate Research Shakes Up Our Understanding Of Moralityhttp://www.businessinsider.com/frans-de-waal-on-human-morality-2013-4
Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:09:00 -0400Jennifer Welsh
<p>Expert primatologist Frans de Waal has been working with chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest evolutionary and genetic relatives, for about 40 years.</p>
<p>He's currently the <a href="http://www.psychology.emory.edu/nab/dewaal/">C. H. Candler Professor of Primate Behavior</a> at Emory University and Director of the <a href="http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/">Living Links primate lab</a> at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center.<strong>&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>In his new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Bonobo-Atheist-Humanism-ebook/dp/B007Q6XKEY">"The Bonobo And The Atheist"</a> (W. W. Norton &amp; Company, Inc, 2013), he argues that our morality &mdash; how we empathize with others and have a desire to be fair to others &mdash; isn't based in our culture or our religion, but instead comes from the way we've evolved over time.</p>
<p>He says that like humans, our primate relatives also show the ability to care for others around them. He visited the office to explain to us the similarities in morality between humans and chimpanzees and bonobos.<br />&nbsp;</p>
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<p><em>Produced by William Wei</em></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/frans-de-waal-on-human-morality-2013-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p>